Into Darkness
by E.A. Week
Summary: King Iphicles calls on the help of his brother, Hercules, to solve a series of terrifying murders in northern Corinth. Blame quickly falls upon a stranded young Horde warrior, but Hercules has his doubts.


Title: **Into Darkness**

Author: E.A. Week

E-mail: eaweek@hotmail.com

Summary:  King Iphicles calls on the help of his brother, Hercules, to solve a series of terrifying murders in northern Corinth.  Blame quickly falls upon a stranded young Horde warrior, but Hercules has his doubts.

Category: Horror, mystery, action/ adventure, some romance (Rena/ Iphicles).

Warning: This story depicts scenes of violence that range from PG-13 to R.  It also addresses mature and "taboo" sexual topics, although specific sex acts are not depicted.

Distribution: Feel free to link this story to any _Xena__/ Hercules or fanfic site, or distribute on a mailing list, but **please** drop me at least a brief e-mail and let me know you've done this._

Feedback: Letters of comment are always welcome! Loved it? Hated it? Let me know why!

Disclaimer: All the _Hercules and __Xena characters belong to Rob Tapert, Sam Raimi, and Renaissance Pics.  I'm just borrowing them, honest! : )_

Datclaimer: This story is rated R for violence and adult sexual content. If you are under 18 and reading this, shame on you!

Possible spoilers: This story takes place at some vague point during _HTLJ season four—somewhere prior to "War Wounds."_

I.          Agenor checked around the noisy tavern cautiously, trying not to seem too obvious.  His supplier was supposed to meet him here tonight.  Agenor took in the other patrons of the tavern, a rough, rowdy bunch.  Good.  The last thing he needed was to be seen by one of the king's men.

There just wasn't anywhere a slaver could make a living these days.  When the new king had taken the throne, he had immediately begun a crackdown on illegal slave trade.  He'd executed some of the most wily men Agenor had ever known, and Agenor had no intention of sharing their fate.  He'd exercised intelligence and caution, but the shrinking number of suppliers made plying his trade more and more difficult.  And risky.

Agenor spotted his contact at last.  He went to the bar, ordered a tankard of ale, then meandered slowly and casually back to the table where the supplier waited.  He studied this new contact carefully: a middle-aged man, bald and bearded, with greedy eyes and a nervous, jumpy manner about him.  And he'd brought company.

Agenor took a seat opposite the pair, glad of the tavern's noisy din, which would provide cover for their conversation.

"Salaemon," he opened, his gaze flicking to the tough thug seated beside the supplier.  "You made it."  He swallowed ale.  "Who's your friend?"

"Him?" asked Salaemon with a dismissive gesture.  "He works for me."  The dealer's arms and legs, thought Agenor.  "His name is Stump."

"Stump?" the slaver echoed.

"Well, maybe 'Gimp' would be better," Salaemon chuckled smugly.  "His leg is bad, so he stumps around.  But his back is strong."  The supplier gulped his drink.  "And he doesn't talk."

Agenor studied the henchman, a powerfully built man of indeterminate age, filthy and unkempt, his face thick with stubble.  He had big, callused hands, and eyes that smoldered with hostility.  There was a dirty rag wrapped about his throat.

"Why not?"

Salaemon wiggled forward on the bench.  "Maybe you've heard of Xena, the warrior-princess?"

Agenor grunted.  "Who hasn't?"

"You know that round metal thing she throws?"  With a finger, Salaemon drew a line across his throat.  "Severed his voice box.  One of her men got his leg with an arrow."

"You're lucky that's all she did."  Agenor stayed well clear of Xena.  She'd been ruthless and bloodthirsty in her earlier days; she would be just as much of a nuisance to him now in her new role as a public do-gooder.

"So Stump's useful," Salaemon continued.  "Strong, stupid, and silent."  He laughed at his own pathetic attempt at wit.  Agenor evaluated the two men with care.  First, he'd see just how good a supplier Salaemon turned out to be; if he proved useful, Agenor would cultivate his business, then kill him once he learned the source of his slaves.  Stump would probably appreciate a change of employer.

"I understand you got some livestock to unload," said Agenor.  He always used farming expressions when conducting business, on the outside chance that someone might overhear him.

"Oh, absolutely!" Salaemon agreed.  "Three fine young fillies."  He lowered his voice.  "From a nobleman's estate."  Agenor's heart briefly jumped with excitement.  Noble-born slaves, especially women, were a rare commodity.

"Only three?" he asked.

"Well, I could probably throw in a couple of... lesser quality animals," Salaemon added.  Which meant the noble-born captives would be accompanied by whatever wretched peasants the supplier could goad Stump into kidnapping.

"What's your price?"

Salaemon gave his prices for both the nobles and the peasants.  High, but less than Agenor had expected, which meant that he would turn a healthy profit when the slaves were sold to their new owners.

"I'll have to inspect the merchandise first," Agenor cautioned.  Best not to sound too eager.

"Of course."  Salaemon beamed that irritating, ingratiating smile of his.  "Do you know the village of Itys?"

"Yeah," said Agenor neutrally.

"Meet us there at midnight tomorrow," Salaemon told him.  "There's an old barn right outside the village on the west road."  Agenor knew exactly the place he spoke of, a deserted farmstead isolated from the main village, near a patch of thick woods.  The slaver mentally calculated how much time he would have before dawn forced him to take his captives into hiding.  With luck, he might make it into Megarid, a state whose less zealous king turned a blind eye to the slave trade.

"Deal," said Agenor simply.  "Have the merchandise ready."  He finished his ale.  "And if anyone follows you there, you're dead."  He set down the tankard and left the tavern.

*****

Agenor got to the barn with his wagon well before midnight, wanting to check the place for hidden traps, but the tumble-down old building was as desolate as he remembered.  He took a position in the shadow of a lean-to and waited, keeping his eyes and ears open.

When the moon had risen to its midnight position, Agenor detected the quiet sound of wheels on the dirt road.  He grew tense.  A few moments later, a large hitch appeared, drawn by a pair of mules.  Salaemon walked on foot, leading the mules by the reins; Stump rode a large horse behind the wagon.  Agenor waited until they'd stopped and stood looking around for him before he stepped out of the shadows and approached Salaemon.

"You got them?" he asked without preamble.  Salaemon nodded, glancing about nervously.

Stump dismounted from his horse and lurched over to the rear of the wagon.  He hauled out a human-shaped bundle, and dragged the bound captive to Agenor and Salaemon.  The henchman yanked off a hood, revealing a small, muscular young woman.  By the moonlight, Agenor could see that she had good features, dark hair, and pale eyes, probably blue or gray.  She had a frightened, defiant look on her face, at odds with the gag in her mouth.  Stump dragged over a second captive and removed the hood.  This one struggled, and Stump had to give her a rough shove.  Like the first, this woman had dark hair and pale eyes.  Her features were even better; she was taller and more slender, her hair dressed in an elaborate coronet of braids.

Salaemon paced impatiently while Stump dragged over the third woman.  This one writhed like a serpent, but Stump quickly subdued her.  He pulled off the hood, and Agenor felt a surge of excitement.  The woman had the unmistakably arrogant bearing of nobility, even under these circumstances.  Her skin was creamy, her hair and eyes as dark as night.  She gave Agenor a murderous look.  He'd have to be careful with her; if she gave him any trouble, a taste of his whip should keep her in line.

"I'll take all three of them," the slaver decided.  He went swiftly to his own wagon and returned with a small money chest.  

Salaemon counted the coins, nodded, and closed the chest.  "Get them into Agenor's wagon," he barked at Stump.

"You said you had others?" Agenor asked him.

"Of course!" Salaemon hissed in an exaggerated whisper.  "In my wagon."  Stump was still busy with the women, so Agenor strode with Salaemon to the supplier's cart.  He reached into the straw, felt a head, and yanked it up by a thick tangle of curls.  Too late, he realized his mistake: the hair was connected to a body that was neither bound nor gagged, and most definitely male.  For a moment, Agenor could not move due to shock, then a hard fist slammed into his face.  He released the man's hair and staggered backward, falling to the ground.

For one brief moment, Agenor thought that this captive must have cut himself loose somehow, but then he saw Salaemon's robe and sandaled feet scurrying away from the wagon.  He'd been hoodwinked.  Gut instinct told him to flee, but that wretched bastard Salaemon had his money.  The curly-haired man jumped out of the wagon.  Agenor managed to leap away from him, and he bolted in the direction Salaemon had taken—toward the old barn.  But a large shape flew out of the darkness and knocked him down.  _Stump!  Immediately, Agenor struck out, driving his knee into the henchman's bad leg, but Stump didn't even seem to feel it.  The two men wrestled furiously, and Agenor realized that the injury was a sham._

So was the supposed damage to Stump's vocal cords.  He pinned Agenor to the ground, bellowing, "Iolaus, get me that rope!"

The curly-haired man brought over a length of rope.  Agenor struggled furiously, but it was two against one, and both his opponents were clearly hardened fighting men.

"I've been looking for you, Agenor," growled Stump.  "You just made your last trade, you filthy, flesh-peddling monster!"  He grabbed Agenor's shoulders and hauled the man to his feet.  Beyond Stump, in the moonlight, Agenor could see Salaemon freeing the women, and knew that they all must be part of this trap.

"You work for the king, you double-dealing bastard!" he gasped.

Stump grabbed the slaver by his throat.  "I _am the king," he said, in a low, deadly voice.  "I'm going to hang you, Agenor."_

The slaver saw only one chance left at escape.  He kicked, catching Iphicles in the knee.  The king's grip loosened for the one instant it took Agenor to writhe loose.  The tough little man with the curly hair attempted to grab him, but the slave trader was ready with a savage head-butt.  Agenor then fled blindly towards the dark forest.

"He's getting away!" Salaemon yelped.  Agenor reached the trees and plunged into the undergrowth, branches whipping his face.  His hands were still tied, so he had no way to shield his face, but he kept running, propelled by blind panic.  He could hear crashing behind him.

Agenor found a familiar path and raced along it, hoping desperately to elude the king's men.  He didn't hear any more footfalls, so he ducked off the path into a pocket of deep shadow.  He worked a dagger out of his boot, then maneuvered it up to the rope that tied his wrists; in a moment, the razor-sharp blade sliced through the bonds.  Agenor resheathed the knife, checked the woods around him, and began to creep along with as much stealth as he could manage.  The trees here covered barely an acre; he had to get clear of them, cross the meadow, and conceal himself in the deeper forest on the other side.  If he could make it through Phlegra undetected, he could hopefully escape into Megarid the following day.

Agenor knew that he could best avoid capture by traveling through the thick swamp that lay at the western edge of the Phlegran forest.  The king's men would never find him in there.  Rumor painted the place as dangerous, but Agenor would rather take his chances than die on the king's scaffold.

He reached the edge of the woods, and peered out across the moonlit meadow.  He had lost the king's henchman, Iolaus; with luck, he'd eluded Iphicles also.  Keeping low, Agenor headed out across the meadow.

He heard a sound, the unmistakable rhythm of hoofbeats, and saw the blurry shape of a massive horse looming in the distance: the king's white stallion.  Agenor abandoned all pretense of caution and fled for the forest with every ounce of his strength.  Traveling on foot would give him an advantage once he reached the trees, but out here in the open, Iphicles would run him down in no time flat.

The trees seemed to rush out to greet him.  Agenor could feel the ground shake as the horse grew closer; his lungs almost burst for want of air, then he shot into the scrub, ducked, and plunged into the dense trees.  He dodged their trunks as he made his way blindly.  Here in the thick forest, the canopy of leaves almost completely blocked out the moonlight.

He heard the quiet snapping of branches behind him: relentless, Iphicles had dismounted to pursue his prey on foot.  Agenor cursed mentally and kept moving, hoping to throw the king off his trail.  There was a gully around here somewhere, and he made his way in what he hoped was its general direction.  He could take cover for the night, then resume his escape the following dawn.  If he wasn't very much mistaken, that ravine should be close at hand.

*****

Iphicles heard the scream clearly, a brief, startled cry of terror.  Then silence.

"What was that?" gasped Iolaus.

"Agenor," the king said grimly.

The two men proceeded carefully, the only light provided by an occasional glimmer from the moon.  Iolaus experienced a sudden crawling sensation on his skin.

A moment later, they emerged into a small clearing.  The two men stopped short, transfixed by horror.  Agenor—or what was left of him—lay sprawled on the ground.  Even in the dim light, they could see that the slaver's head had been taken right from his body.  The decapitated corpse gushed blood into the dead leaves and dirt beneath it.

II.         Hercules hurried up the steps of the overlord's palace in Phlegra.  One of his brother's guards recognized him, and waved him inside the door, where he immediately spotted Salmoneus.

"Hercules!" the salesman called out.  "You're just in time for dinner."

Iolaus emerged from another room at the sound of his friend's name.  "Herk," he greeted.  "What'd you do, run all the way from your mother's house?"

"I came as soon as I got word," Hercules told him.  "How'd it go tracking Agenor?"

Iolaus looked worried.  "Not quite the way we planned," he revealed.  "Come on in and eat, and we'll tell you about it after dinner."

Hercules detoured long enough to wash his hands at a well outside the kitchen, then returned to the great hall, where a table had been set for eight.  He reached over to clasp his brother's hand, then gave Rena, his sister-in-law, a brief hug and kiss.  Dirce and Phoebe greeted him with affectionate hugs, also.  Josephus, overlord of Phlegra since Iphicles had become king, was also a guest for this dinner.  Hercules gave the young man a handclasp.

"Did you catch Agenor?" Hercules inquired once they'd all taken seats.  He had badly wanted to be part of his brother's snare, but he'd feared the plan would fall apart if anyone recognized him.

"Not exactly," Iphicles responded, accepting a goblet of wine from Falafel.  "He's dead."

"What happened?" asked Hercules.

"Please, let's wait until we finish eating to talk about it," admonished Rena from the other end of the table.

"Yes, please," Salmoneus added, shuddering visibly.  "Let's."

The meal proceeded pleasantly.  Hercules marveled at the changes in Phlegra since the overthrow of Gorgus, Rena's late stepfather.  What a difference three years made.  Hercules recalled how the frightened but determined Josephus had organized the people of Phlegra to rebel against the tyranny of Gorgus.  The formerly starving and downtrodden populace was now healthy and well, and the province prospered under the leadership of Josephus.

As they finished eating, a female servant appeared in the archway, a frustrated expression on her face, a wailing, red-faced toddler in her arms.

"I'm sorry, my lady, but he won't settle down."

With a look of affectionate exasperation, Rena went and claimed her offspring.  Two-year-old Alector caught sight of his uncle, and immediately, the tears transformed into an expression of cherubic joy.

"Come see uncle Herk," Hercules encouraged, holding out his arms.  Rena set the boy on the floor, and he toddled right over.  Hercules pulled Alector up into his lap.  "Oof, you're getting big," he said, bouncing the child on his knee.  Alector gurgled with laughter.

"Sure you don't want to move in with us?" Iphicles jested.  "You could give us a hand when he gets like this in the middle of the night."

Hercules laughed.  "It's a stage," he said.  "They outgrow it."  After a few moments, Alector decided he'd had enough, and held out his chubby arms to Iphicles.  "Want Papa!" he commanded.  Hercules handed over the baby with a grin, feeling a quiet pang of envy at the ineffable glow of love in his brother's eyes.

Finally, Iphicles yielded the boy to Rena, reluctance creasing his face.  "C'mon," he said to Hercules.  "There's something I want you to see."

*****

Hercules stared at the two corpses, his jaw slack.  Across the table, Iphicles and Josephus looked pale and grim.  Beside him, Iolaus tensely regarded the bodies.

"This is how you found them?" asked Hercules.

"Yeah," responded his brother.  "The one on the left is Agenor.  He got away from us last night.  We chased him into the woods.  Before we could catch up with him, we heard him scream.  This is what we found."

"Was he still bleeding?" asked Hercules.

"Gushing," Iolaus grimaced.  "Whoever did this must've just left the scene before we got there.  We weren't about to try and find him in those woods at night."

"The one on the right is a local man, Dolius," said Josephus.  "He'd gone out at dawn to tend an ewe that was dropping a lamb.  One of his farm hands found him behind the barn."

"And you couldn't find the heads anywhere?" asked Hercules.

"No," answered Iolaus.  "We looked all over."

"But that's not the worst," Iphicles put in.  "We got word this morning that other people have disappeared from villages west and north of Phlegra, too, right up into Megarid.  If the bodies turn up at all, they're always decapitated."

"So somewhere, someone has himself a nice collection of heads," remarked Hercules.  He forced himself to examine the necks where the heads had been severed.  On both men, the bone had been cut cleanly, with one stroke.  Hercules saw no sign that the attacker had made any blows other than the fatal one.  A quick, decisive attack.

He straightened up, and glanced out the narrow slit in the wall of the outbuilding where the corpses had been placed.  Still daylight.  He drew the muslin sheet back up over the two bodies.  "Show me where you found them."

*****

The four men went first to the barn where Dolius had been found.  Hercules looked at the ground, then inspected the wall of the barn very carefully.  Evidently, he didn't find what he sought, because he next requested to be taken to the site of Agenor's death.

As twilight settled over the forest, Hercules looked around the clearing where the slaver's body had been found.  He looked briefly at the ground, then carefully took in the surrounding trees.  Almost immediately, he found the object of his quest.

"Look at this."  He motioned for the others to join him.  On the trunk of a tree, at about the height of his shoulder, a fresh mark bit deep into the wood.

"Both of those men were killed with one blow, but Agenor had time to scream," said Hercules.  "I was hoping we'd find something like this.  Whoever killed him must have struck out and missed, probably because of the darkness."

"And this is recent."  Iolaus poked at the incision.  "You can still feel the sap."

"My guess is that Agenor and Dolius were both killed with an ax," speculated Hercules.  "This cut gets narrower as it goes in."  He stepped back so that Iphicles and Josephus could examine the wedge-shaped indentation.  "An ax head would fit right in there."  Had the two men been killed with swords, Hercules thought, the gouge mark on the tree would have been more narrow and uniform.

"What about something like a meat cleaver?" asked Josephus.  "Those have a similar shape."

"Probably not," said Hercules.  "A meat cleaver has a shorter handle, and it would have been more difficult to kill someone with just one blow.  I'd say the killer was using an ax with a long handle."  He picked up a long stick from the ground.  "And probably was about my height."  He pantomimed swinging at the tree, keeping his arms level with his shoulders.  The indentation in the tree trunk was right in the path of his swing.

"Maybe he just swung up," suggested Iphicles.

"No, because Agenor was only my height," Iolaus reminded him.  "If anything, I'd have expected that mark to be lower."

"And it's straight in," Hercules observed, again poking his finger into the chipped bark.  "If he'd been swinging up or down, the mark would be at an angle."  He didn't like the rough sketch of the killer forming in his mind: a man his own size, possibly his own strength, armed with an ax, and helping himself to the heads of whoever he encountered.

His companions seemed to read his thoughts, and shifted uneasily.  Iolaus glanced at the darkening sky.  "Let's get out of here," he said.  Nobody argued with him.

*****

Rena checked on Alector one last time.  The little boy curled up in his bed, breathing deeply, sound asleep.  He sometimes had difficulty sleeping in strange places, although the palace in Phlegra was practically their second home.  Silently, Rena withdrew from the room, letting the curtain fall over the archway.

She gazed around the suite, the same rooms in which she'd spent her girlhood, when she was the daughter of the house.  Idly, Rena went to the dressing-table and began to brush her thick, dark hair.  In the connecting room, she could hear Iphicles, still in the bathtub.  He'd been scrubbing himself, as if contaminated with filth, for the better part of an hour.

It was strange to come back here as a guest, even though she and Iphicles ruled Phlegra, a province of Corinth.  As a girl, Rena had been mostly overlooked, which had enabled her to grow up unfettered by any real burdens.  Her mother had been preoccupied with Gorgus, who had married her when he'd conquered Phlegra, overthrowing Rena's birth father.  Rena had been three, so she recalled nothing of that time.  Only many years later did she put together the pieces and realize that her mother had been unhappy in her first marriage, as a result of which she began an illicit affair with Gorgus.  In all likelihood, she'd plotted with him against her own husband.

Rena's mother spent the next ten years bearing children, four fine sons for her husband.  All had come to tragic ends: the eldest died the first time he rode into battle with his father, the second had not survived childhood, the third died when a horse threw him, the fourth died in infancy, along with Rena's mother.  Perhaps the weight of grief had driven Gorgus into a life of constant warfare, and caused him to bleed Phlegra dry to finance his army.  But probably his preoccupation with battle, Rena mused, had also prevented him from marrying her off to some ghastly dullard of a husband, or worse, some heartless warlord.

When Iphicles and Hercules defeated Gorgus, Iphicles had inherited the oversight of Phlegra by conquest and through his marriage to Rena, the only heir to the province.  King Jason had tried and executed Gorgus, and given his blessing and approval to the rule of Iphicles in Phlegra.  Rena chuckled, recalling the anger of that weasel Patronius, who had fancied the oversight of Phlegra for himself.  Then she shuddered, remembering that Patronius had tried to kill Iphicles on the day of Jason's wedding to Alcmene.  She set down her hairbrush with a sigh.  Well, everything had worked out in the end.  Now, she was not only the Lady of Phlegra, her rightful position, but also Queen of Corinth, something she'd never expected.

"Iphicles, are you ever going to come out of there, or do I need to send a messenger on horseback?"

The king finally emerged, a towel wrapped about his narrow waist, tugging at snarls in his chestnut hair with a wooden comb.

"Here, let me do that," Rena coaxed.  Iphicles took a seat at his wife's dressing table.  Deftly, she drew out the tangles, then set down the comb and wrapped her arms around his torso.  Lovingly, she kissed his shoulders and nuzzled the side of his neck.

"Is you-know-who off to sleepy-land?" said Iphicles.

"He's off, and hopefully he'll stay there for a while," answered Rena.

"Good."  Iphicles turned around on the seat and scooped his wife up into his arms.  "I love him to pieces, but he picks some rotten times to get fussy."  Rena giggled as Iphicles carried her over to their bed.  "I worry we might forget exactly how we got him into the world in the first place."

Rena had to clamp her mouth shut to keep from bursting out with laughter.  It would be just her luck to wake the baby, when they'd finally gotten him to sleep.  She and Iphicles quickly shed their bedclothes, and settled eagerly into each other's arms.  After four years of marriage, they were still like honeymooners.  But then, Iphicles froze and abruptly drew away from her.

"What is it?" she asked, alarmed.

He looked down at her body.  "You're pregnant again."

Rena flushed with sudden embarrassment.  "I wasn't sure," she waffled.  "I was going to wait and see..."  She stopped, aware of how utterly unconvincing she sounded.

Iphicles gently traced lines up and down, from her swelling breasts to the slightly rounded curve of her belly.  "You knew this before we went after Agenor."  It was a statement, neither a question nor an accusation.

"I'm sorry," she said miserably.  "But I promised to help you..."

"Rena," he admonished, "We could've done it without you."  Iphicles drew her back into his arms.  "I love how brave you are, but if anything'd happened to you... or the baby..." he trailed off, unable to continue.  Rena was more than his wife, she—and their children—were the center of his universe.  Iphicles would rather die himself than see her harmed.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"'S okay," he reassured, kissing her silky hair.  "Please, don't do things like that!"

"I won't, I promise!"  Rena hugged him, hard.  "But I knew you needed bait that Agenor couldn't resist."

"Phoebe and Dirce would have done fine."

"And Iolaus," murmured Rena, smiling wickedly.

The king snorted with laughter, recalling the slaver's shock when Iolaus had emerged from the wagon.  "I'll remember the look on his face for the rest of my life, that stinking, miserable scum."  But thinking about Agenor's face reminded him of the slaver's decapitation— and the ax-wielding killer who even now might be stalking his next victim.

"Curfew," he said suddenly, sitting bolt upright in bed.

"What?"

"I should tell Josephus to set a curfew until we find this monster," said Iphicles, starting to stand.  "People shouldn't go anywhere by themselves.  We should—"

"Iphicles."  Rena gently took her husband's arm and drew him back into bed.  "Josephus is asleep.  It can wait until morning."

Iphicles relented, and dropped back down beside his wife.  "Yeah."  They turned into each other's arms again, the urgency of their kisses driven as much by fear as by passion.

Iphicles paused when Rena began to giggle, and he gave her a questioning look.

"I was just thinking about Salmoneus," she explained.

Iphicles laughed softly.  "For someone who doesn't think he has much courage, he couldn't have duped Agenor any better.  We're lucky he's such a good salesman."

Rena's inquisitive fingers tickled their way down her husband's chest.  "And he's lucky you have such a theatrical streak—" she kissed his mouth—"Stump."

*****

"It's okay Maron," said Josephus.  "You can trust Hercules."

Maron eyed the two men with trepidation, not budging from his position in front of the dead body.  He was small, but looked strong, and he clutched a pitchfork in one hand.

"He came here to help," Josephus went on, keeping his voice calm and gentle.  "Maron..." he said, "it's Hercules.  You know.... he helps people.  Now, let us see your brother's body."

"No!" Maron shouted, eyes wild.

"Maron, I know you're frightened and upset," said Josephus, "but you can trust Hercules.  He won't hurt you."  Maron didn't budge.  "He's the king's brother!"

Maron seemed to snap out of his daze of fear.  "He is?"  He looked Hercules up and down, as if searching for a family resemblance.  Finally, he lowered his pitchfork and cautiously stepped aside.  "I guess you're all right, then."

It only took Hercules a moment to determine that the dead man had met the same fate as Agenor and Dolius.  Phegeus and his brother, Maron, had gone out at dawn to tend their vineyard.  Phegeus had only been out of sight for a few moments.  A farmhand found the body.

Hercules now knew something else about the killer.  He tended to strike after dark and just before dawn, and he picked isolated victims.  Dolius and Phegeus had both been working near the edge of the forest when they were murdered.

Hercules straightened up and stared towards the dense trees of the forest.  The province of Phlegra was settled in the river valley that ran parallel with the border of Megarid.  The river originated in the forest, fed by springs that bubbled up in the deep marshland.  The springs fed into small streams and brooks, which eventually joined together and formed the river itself.  From these three deaths, Hercules guessed that the killer must be living in the forest, possibly in the swamp, and preying on the villages and towns that surrounded the vast woodlands.

He looked at Josephus, and saw the younger man thinking exactly the same grim thoughts.

"It'll take us forever to search that forest," Josephus opined.

"We'll have to," said Hercules.

*****

In the end, Hercules decided it would be more effective if just the four of them went.  A company of men from the Corinthian Army would need several days to reach Phlegra.  And the noise and clatter of armed men would doubtless send the killer scurrying into retreat, only to re-emerge when the army gave up the search.

They waited until just after dawn the next day.  Josephus had sounded a general alarm throughout the valley, sending messengers to all the villages and towns surrounding the forest.  He encouraged prudence, not panic.  People were told to stay together, not to venture out of doors after dark, and to avoid the forest.

The four men proceeded silently, single file, along the path.  Josephus carried his longbow; Iphicles and Iolaus wore swords.  Only Hercules was unarmed.

Hercules had decided that their best strategy would be to start at the eastern end of the forest and work their way west.  They studied the ground and undergrowth minutely, looking for anything suspicious—human remains or clothing, evidence of a campfire, footprints.  The need for silence and caution exacerbated the tension of their frustrating, slow, painstaking work.  Hercules tried to let his senses extend in all directions around him.  Because of his mixed blood, he could usually tell when he was being watched or followed; his hearing and sense of smell were acute.  But he could not hear, feel, or smell anything out of place in the sunny green forest.

They searched all day, pausing only long enough to consume a noonday meal of dried meat, bread, and water.  By the time the afternoon sun began slanting down the horizon, Hercules had to admit defeat for the day.  They needed to find their way back out of the woods before darkness fell; besides, all four of them were hungry, footsore, and tired.

Josephus used his knife to make a mark on a tree trunk, so they would know where to resume their search the next day.  Then the four men turned and began trudging wearily back toward the path that led to the palace.

On their way out of the forest, Hercules felt a disturbance in the air, so subtle he almost missed it.  A current passed over his skin.  He inhaled, and very faintly, detected the odor of an unwashed body.  He listened hard, and was rewarded with the almost inaudible rustle of leaves.  The scent became suddenly acrid, which Hercules associated with the tension of a body as it prepared to attack.

"Get down!" he bellowed, an instant before he heard the whistling of a weapon as it hurtled through the air.  The four men dropped to the path, and Hercules heard a dull _thuk.  He jumped to his feet, keeping low, and turned about cautiously.  He heard the sound of someone scrambling away through the undergrowth, not attempting to conceal his presence.  Iolaus started to give chase, but Hercules grabbed his friend's shoulder._

"No.  That's what he wants us to do.  It'll be dark in less than an hour, and if we start chasing him now, we'll end up lost in the woods."

"He's right," Josephus agreed.  "We'd be sitting ducks."

Iphicles had found the weapon.  In the trunk of a tree, deeply embedded in the wood, was a wicked-looking ax with a double blade.

III.       "The _what?" asked Josephus._

"The Horde," said Iphicles.  He paused long enough to drain his tankard of mead.  "Savages.  Last year, they raided western Macedonia.  The Athenian Army had an outpost there; the Horde surrounded the garrison and killed most of the men."  Iphicles nodded at his brother.  "Your friend Xena helped drive them off."

"Yeah," Hercules remembered.  "She told us about it the last time we ran into her.  She said she challenged the leader of the tribe to one-on-one combat, and when the leader was dead, the rest of them took off."

"Where are they from?" asked Josephus.  "Who are they?  Celts?"

"Nobody's sure where they're from," Iphicles responded.  "And they're not Celts."

The four men sat around the table in the dining room, following the evening meal.  The double-bladed battle ax lay on the table, gleaming and malevolent.  Iphicles radiated anxiety in palpable waves.  The following day, at dawn, a messenger would ride to the city of Corinth, to alert the army to the possible presence of the savage raiders.  Iphicles also planned to send messengers to the kings of the surrounding city-states, warning them of the potential threat.

"Xena said they attack in bands," Iolaus recalled.

"They do," scowled Iphicles.  "That's why they're called the Horde.  Gods only know what they call themselves.  Mercer said they attack in waves, and they'll kill anything that gets in their path.  Ordinary people wouldn't stand a chance, not unless they could get inside a fortified city.  And then the bastards just settle back and starve you out."

"Don't panic," Hercules urged.  "We don't even know if it's them—all we have is one ax.  And the murder victims we've seen have been picked off one by one.  That doesn't sound like a Horde attack to me, at least not from what Xena described."

"What do you think we should do?" asked Josephus nervously.

"Keep looking," Hercules responded.  "Just like we planned."

*****

"I didn't _think this was right."  Hercules held up the Horde battle ax to the mark on the tree where Agenor's body had been found.  The rounded curve of the ax blade didn't fit the indentation in the tree trunk._

"And look.  This ax has a short handle; it's meant to be thrown, not swung."  He gestured for the other three men to get behind him, then threw the ax.  It whistled through the air and hit a tree trunk with the same _thuk they'd heard the day before.  "The Horde axes are designed to take a man in the chest or the back," he concluded._

"Yeah, but that still doesn't mean it's _not the Horde," argued Iphicles._

"The only evidence we have that it _might be the Horde is one ax," his brother stated._

"What about the heads?" asked Iolaus.  "Xena said the Horde warriors wore head-dresses made out of human skulls."

Hercules had to admit his friend had a point.

"Wonderful," Josephus muttered.

"I still don't think it's them," Hercules maintained.  "They raid in bands; they attack all at once.  They don't sneak around, killing people off one at a time."

"Maybe they're trying to weaken and demoralize us first," speculated Iphicles.

"If they are, what's the point in killing farmers?" asked Hercules.  "I'd expect them to be killing soldiers and palace guards, weakening our defenses.  I think we're after one man, someone who just got his hands on a Horde ax, and is using it to throw us off his trail."  He and Iphicles briefly stood glaring at each other.

At last, the king relented.  "All right," he said.  "We'll keep looking."

*****

The four men covered a substantial amount of forest that day, but found no signs of human habitation or disturbance.  Their search took them as far as the edges of the swamp before they turned back for the palace, exhausted and discouraged.

A commotion greeted them when they returned to town.  A dinner patron at a local tavern had gone staggering out into the woods, possibly to relieve himself, and never returned.  Two employees of the tavern found his headless body in back of a woodpile.

*****

"I don't believe it," said Josephus distractedly.  He paced while Hercules, Iphicles, and Iolaus examined the area in back of the tavern.  "Here we were, off in the woods all day, and the bastard just waited until we were gone."

"Hold still," barked Iolaus.  "We can't see anything if you don't keep that torch in one place."  Josephus let forth a gusty sigh and stopped pacing.

"There's nothing," Iphicles growled.  He was almost as agitated as Josephus; the two leaders took very personally the ruthless slaying of their citizens, and the mounting death toll weighed heavily on them.  "Just like all the others."

"Not quite nothing," Hercules countered.  He'd gone around to the left of the woodpile.  "Come look at this.  Josephus, bring the torch."

The three men gathered around Hercules, who had hunkered down near a patch of wet soil where tavern employees threw out dirty dishwater.  In the muddy ground, the men saw one large footprint.  Taking care to not disturb the site, Hercules gently lowered his own foot so that it rested inside the print.  The footprint in the mud dwarfed his boot by two inches on all sides.

Hercules removed his foot, then squatted back down beside the impression.  He drew an eating knife from his belt and teased at something in the wet soil.  Carefully, he tugged out a muddy piece of plant matter and held it up in the torchlight, a short piece of vine with two leaves attached.  It must have been stuck to the bottom of the killer's foot.

"So?" asked Iphicles impatiently.

"This is a water vine," Hercules told him.  "It only grows in swamps."

*****

The following day, the four men began their search near the swamp.  Hercules went first, checking the ground carefully.  In addition to looking for signs of their quarry, they also would have to avoid getting mired in mud or quicksand.  And the deeper they proceeded into the swamp, the more water covered the ground, and the more treacherous their search became.  Josephus walked behind Hercules, followed by Iphicles.  Iolaus took the rear.

Their progress was markedly slower than it had been when they searched the drier part of the forest.  Hercules feared they would never find anything in the swamp.  Ground water quickly moved in to conceal any tracks, and thick curtains of vegetation provided potential cover for a small army of miscreants.  If something, or someone, dwelled within this place, a search party might look for months in the soggy marshlands and find nothing.

At mid-afternoon, they stopped to rest on a patch of higher ground near a large tree.  Now, in addition to fatigue and hunger, all four men were damp and uncomfortable.  Hercules was soaking wet from his feet to well above his knees.  His mind wanted to continue the search; his body wanted a chair, a fire, dry clothes, and warm food.

"This is getting pointless," snapped Iphicles.  Josephus nodded glumly.

Hercules fought the urge to pound his temperamental brother on the head.  Iphicles expected fast solutions to this problem; Hercules knew full well that the situation was more complicated than it seemed on the surface.  Iphicles tended to accept obvious answers, while his brother's vast experience told him that jumping to hasty conclusions could prove not only foolhardy, but fatal.

"We should start back now," Hercules decided.  Returning to town would take longer today because their progress through the swamp would be slower.  He hated to give up two or three hours of good daylight, but in truth, they weren't accomplishing much, and as they grew more tired, their tempers would flare, and they might fall right into the killer's hands.

"Fine," shot Iphicles, and promptly stormed off into the undergrowth.  Iolaus threw Hercules a half-apologetic, half-amused glance before following the king.  Hercules let Josephus go ahead of him, then brought up the rear of their party.  Why did his brother always have to be like this?  Resentment, still, after all these years?  _You could build a boat out of that chip on his shoulder._

He hurried along behind Josephus, trying to catch up to Iphicles and Iolaus.  He could hear the two men, but not see them.  Alarmed, he called out.

"Iphicles!  Iolaus!  Wait up!"

He heard a crashing and a muttering, then a sudden, startled cry.

"What—" he breathed, angrily pushing branches aside.

"Herk!  Herk!"  Iolaus hung by a foot snare from a tree, swinging back and forth about twenty feet off the ground.  Iphicles stood watching him, laughing.

"This isn't funny, damn you!"  Iolaus was laughing also, despite his frustration.  "Herk, get me down from this thing!"

"All right, little buddy.  Hang in there."  

"Very funny!"  Iolaus rolled his eyes.  Hercules never passed up the opportunity for a bad pun.

Shaking his head, Hercules easily shimmied up the tree trunk.  Just as he reached the bough where the snare was set, he spied a faint quiver of movement in the thicket behind his brother.

"Iphicles, behind you!"

The king spun around, sword drawn, crouching low.  Hercules saw the quivering branches begin to suddenly move away.  His brother saw this also, and plunged into the undergrowth.

"Iphicles, no!"  Hercules crawled out onto the bough, grabbed the rope that held Iolaus, and hauled his friend up to safety.  "Stay with Josephus!" he ordered, then dropped from the limb to the ground.  "Don't leave Iolaus!" he barked at Josephus, then crashed into the brush after Iphicles.

From somewhere in the distance, he heard a bellow of outrage, unmistakably his brother's voice.  Hercules pushed through the undergrowth, mindless of the vines and branches whipping his face.  "You filthy brute!" he heard Iphicles yelling.

Finally, Hercules emerged into another clearing to find that Iphicles had brought his quarry to ground.  The king was muddy and wet; like Hercules, his face bore red welts from his charge through the dense vegetation, but he was otherwise unharmed.  Hercules looked at the man his brother had captured.

The fugitive seemed barely out of adolescence.  His face and body had been painted to blend in with the undergrowth, his hair filthy, matted, and unkempt.  He wore primitive clothing of animal skins, and his nasal septum had been pierced with a bone.  His dark eyes glared up from the ground where Iphicles had him pinned.

The king looked up at his brother, angry and triumphant at the same time.

"So it's not the Horde, is it?"

IV.       "Iphicles, it's not him."

The great hall was quiet for the night.  The Horde warrior had been given food and water, and now stood silently while the four denizens of Corinth tried to figure out what to do with him.

By now, Hercules and Iphicles were rubbing each other completely the wrong way.  Iolaus kept glancing back and forth between them, as though expecting a fire to ignite from the angry sparks.

"How do you know?" the king spat.

"Look at him.  He's not big enough, for one thing."  The young Horde warrior barely stood taller than Iolaus.  "His feet are too small."

Iphicles stopped pacing for a moment.  "One of his buddies did it, then."  He waved a hand at the sullen warrior.  "Herk, the swamp's probably crawling with these monsters."

Hercules folded his powerful arms on his chest.  "Well, what do you suggest we do, then?"

Iphicles pointed an accusing finger at his brother.  "I think we should send the army in there and flush out the lot of them.  That's what I think we should do."

"Iphicles, that's crazy.  You know what happened to the Athenian army.  If there's more of them in the woods, they're well-trenched, and a conventional army is going to be at a disadvantage.  You'd lose scores of men.  For what?  Besides, I don't think there's more; I think he's the only one."

"The only one!" echoed Iphicles in clear disbelief.  "They don't work that way!"

"I know," said Hercules, trying to be patient.  "Maybe this one just got stranded.  Look at him—he hasn't had a decent meal in months."  He based this assumption on more than just the warrior's filthy, half-starved state.  He looked frightened and desperate, not aggressive.  He seemed more afraid of the men in the room than they were of him, although he maintained a convincing façade of stoicism.

"I can't take that chance," Iphicles shot back.  "I have people to protect."  He threw the warrior a murderous look.  "I want to know where the rest of his tribe is.  And he's gonna tell me, if I have to beat it out of him!"

Hercules planted himself in front of the warrior.  "Is that the answer?" he asked angrily.  "If you do that, you're more of a 'savage' than he is!"

"Don't tell me how to do my job!" Iphicles roared.

"Torturing him won't get you anywhere," Hercules argued.  "Even if he understood you, do you think he'd tell you anything?"  He gave his brother a hard, piercing look.  Iphicles stood fuming, then a fraction of his anger seemed to drain out of him.  He maintained a strict policy of never torturing prisoners in his keep, even the most odious criminals.  Accused miscreants were tried fairly and sentenced quickly; Iphicles never made a public spectacle of executions.  Many found his practices odd, but many more appreciated his sense of humanity.  He ruled with respect, not fear, and Hercules would hate to see that change now.

"Okay," the king relented, giving his brother an expectant look.  "You tell me what we should do, then."

Hercules exhaled.  "We can start by asking him his name."

"We can't understand him.  How're we supposed to do that?"

Hercules approached the young warrior, sure to keep his arms down in a non-threatening position.  He studied the painted face, looking directly into the dark eyes, seeing more fear than anything else.  The warrior might not understand the Corinthian dialect, but he could certainly read hostility in the way Iphicles gestured and spoke.  Although none of the four men wore any mark of status, the warrior had clearly identified the king, and it was Iphicles who his eyes followed.

The young man looked up at Hercules with trepidation, seeming unsure what to expect.  Finally, Hercules patted a hand on his own chest.

"Hercules," he said slowly.

The Horde warrior stared at him distrustfully.  Hercules repeated the gesture and spoke his name again, even more slowly.  Then he tapped the warrior's chest and gave him an encouraging expression.

If the adolescent understood what Hercules wanted, he gave no sign of it.  His body was rigid, his face expressionless, and he looked through Hercules as though he wasn't even there.  Hercules felt a spasm of frustration.  He had no clue in Tartarus how Horde warriors typically greeted one another, if they did at all.  How was he supposed to communicate with this man when they couldn't do something as simple as exchanging names?

Mentally, Hercules reviewed everything Xena had told him about the Horde.  He recalled her story of the warrior she'd captured for information, in particular, her comment that the prisoner had refused to fight her when given the opportunity.  Illumination hit him at that moment.

"Iphicles, you try it," he suggested.

"What?" responded his brother, startled.

"Tell him your name."

Hercules stepped aside.  Iphicles approached the young man, and tapped his own chest.  Speaking clearly, he said, "Iphicles."

The warrior's demeanor changed immediately.  He dropped his eyes and lowered his head in a clear posture of submission.  Rapping his fist twice against his breastbone, he made a guttural sound in his throat.

"What's that?  What'd he say?" asked Iphicles, excited and confused.

"Do it again," Hercules encouraged.

Iphicles repeated his own name.  The warrior again struck his chest twice and spoke.  Hercules listened more carefully this time.

"Brug?" asked Hercules.  The Horde warrior didn't respond.

"Brug?" Iphicles repeated.  The young man nodded once, keeping his eyes on the floor.

"I'll be," Josephus marveled.

"They must have some sort of strict hierarchy," speculated Hercules.  "Xena told us that a warrior she captured refused to fight her, apparently because his status was too low.  He recognized her as the chief warrior, the leader of her tribe.  That's when he went and got his own chief, so that Xena could fight him.  This man won't talk to me, because I'm not the leader here.  It must be some kind of disrespect."

"How'd he figure out Iphicles is the leader?"  Iolaus stared at the adolescent in astonishment.

"Just by watching us," Hercules told him.  "Now, maybe we can learn something.  Josephus, get a map of the area, would you?"  The young man hurried out of the room.

"We need to tell him it's okay to answer my questions," said Hercules.  "If he knows I'm your brother, maybe he'll talk to me, too."

"Brug," said Iphicles.  The young warrior glanced up briefly.

Iphicles rested a hand on his brother's arm, then tapped his own chest, trying to indicate a bond between them.  The warrior glanced back and forth between the two men.  The brothers clearly saw a gleam of understanding in Brug's eyes; he'd recognized the tie of kinship.  Now, he regarded Hercules with more deference.

Josephus returned with the map; Hercules took the scroll from him and unrolled it.  The map delineated most of northern Corinth and southern Megarid, including the river, forest, and the Gulf of Corinth.

Iphicles got Brug's attention again.  He gestured around the room with his hand, then pointed at the mark on the map indicating the location of the town and palace.  Brug nodded once, to signal his understanding.  Iphicles pointed at the young man with a questioning look.  Brug regarded the map, then pointed to the water.

"You came here by water?" asked Hercules?  "In a boat?"  

The warrior seemed confused.  He pointed to the far upper left-hand corner of the map, indicating the northwest.  Then he drew a line down the western coastline.  He tapped once at a point roughly off the west coast of Corinth.  Brug then gestured to the four men in the room.  He shook his head and looked down at the floor.

"They must've left Macedonia by boat and come down the coast," Hercules guessed.  "I'll bet they were shipwrecked.  He's trying to tell us that all his men were killed.  Brug must be the only survivor."

"Well, that's a happy accident for us," muttered Iphicles.  Nobody argued with him.

Iolaus slapped a hand against his leg.  "The _hurricane," he said.  "Their ship must've been lost in the storm."_

About eight months earlier, a fierce hurricane had blown in off the ocean, pounding the Peloponnese.  The damage had extended as far north as Thessaly and as far east as Euboia; any ship caught unawares had been doomed.  The timing fit Brug's appearance, too.  The young man looked like he'd been living in the woods for several months.  Although most likely trained to survive in the wilderness, the Horde were by all accounts a clan-based society.  Their strength depended on the sheer force of their masses.  Individuals, isolated from the protection of the tribe, were far more vulnerable.

Iphicles gestured with his hands, sketching out a pantomime of a ship sailing on water, then sinking.  Brug nodded once.  He made swimming motions.  He closed his eyes and made hard breathing noises.  Then he pointed to the map again, to the western edge of the Phlegran forest.  He pantomimed looking up, around himself, as if at trees.

"He's been living in the forest," Hercules remarked.  "I wonder if he's seen the man we're after?"

"Brug," said Iphicles.  He pointed to the forest, then to the warrior.  Then he drew his finger across his throat in a slicing gesture.  The warrior started with fear, then dropped his head, as if in resignation.

Iolaus laughed briefly.  "He thinks you're going to take him back to the woods and kill him."

"No, no!"  Iphicles caught Brug's attention and shook his head, making an apologetic expression.  He stepped back a bit, and pantomimed swinging an ax.  He then took on the role of the victim, with a surprisingly good rendition of a man whose head has just been lopped off.  He then looked questioningly at the Horde warrior, and pointed to the forest on the map.

Even through the coating of paint, the four men could see the color drain from Brug's face.  Without warning, the adolescent dropped to his knees and pressed his forehead to the floor, folding his hands over the back of his head in the most bizarre posture of obeisance Hercules had ever seen.  The four men stared at each other with incredulity.

"He's seen something," said Josephus fearfully.

"Maybe it's a giant, or a Cyclops," suggested Iolaus.

"The footprint was too small for a giant or a Cyclops," Hercules reminded them.  He watched as Iphicles gently urged Brug back to his feet.

"What have you seen?" asked Hercules, then he sighed.  If only they shared even a few words in common.

Iphicles pointed at Brug, pointed at the map, gestured to his own head, then gave the warrior a questioning look.

The Horde warrior seemed highly frightened.  Finally, he put his hands on either side of his head, then pantomimed setting it on the ground.  He repeated the gesture several times, suggesting a number of heads piled up, one atop the other.

"A pile of heads?"  Hercules finally understood.  He looked at Brug and nodded vigorously, to communicate his comprehension.  Brug took one step to the side and began to repeat the performance, again indicating the act of creating a pile on the ground.

"More than one pile of heads?"  Hercules felt a sinking sensation in his gut.  Brug gestured again and again, his motions indicating many such piles.

Hercules pointed to the forest on the map again, to the place where the river originated in the marshes.  "There?" he asked.  He pointed to Brug's imaginary piles of heads, then back to the same spot on the map, and gave the young man a questioning look.

Brug nodded once.

"He's seen it," said Iphicles.  "He knows where the heads are."

Hercules swung an imaginary ax, pointed to the forest, then looked at Brug.

The young warrior gestured to Hercules, holding his hands up in the air.  The four men realized Brug must be trying to tell them what the killer looked like.  From his gesticulations, they gathered that the man they sought was bigger than Hercules.  Brug held his arms out at the height of his shoulders, his hands seeming to indicate a man with a large build.  Engaging in a remarkably good pantomime, he took a few steps, walking with a peculiar gait, almost as if one leg had suddenly grown longer than the other.  He hunched over, which made his arms seem rather long.  His face lost its look of intelligence, and suddenly took on an expression of vacant stupidity.  But it was a mean look, as well as a stupid one.  Brug pointed to his own eyes, then rolled them slightly towards his nose, suggesting a cross-eyed gaze.

The performance was uncanny, and more than a little creepy.  Hercules had the distinct impression of a hulking brute of a man, perhaps injured or deformed.  Keeping in character, Brug pantomimed swinging an ax.  Iolaus and Josephus shuddered visibly.

Hercules pointed to Brug, then to himself, then to the forest on the map.  He made a walking gesture that he hoped communicated a desire for Brug to show him the place in the forest where the killer had hidden the skulls.

Brug shook his head, looking fearful.  He once again took on the demeanor of the hunch-backed man, pretending to swing an ax.  He reached down, as if picking up the severed head, pretended to carry it, then set it down.  Again, he suggested the piling up of many heads.  Then he dropped to his knees and made the same gesture of obeisance, head to the floor, hands covering his head, as if in supplication.  Then he stood, eyes pleading mutely with Hercules.  He shook his head.

"I don't get it," said Iolaus, baffled.

"He's frightened," Hercules observed.  "Maybe he thinks we should beg the killer for mercy?  I don't know."

The Horde warrior could tell them no more.  Wearily, Iphicles rolled up the map, and called for a pair of guards to escort the adolescent back to the room where he was being held.

*****

Hercules didn't often dream.  He was usually exhausted by the time he gave into the need for slumber, and generally, his sleep was black and dreamless.

But now he experienced a surreal nightmare, in which he was a soldier in Xena's army.  They were trying to get the rest of their men out of a ravine.  He couldn't see the Horde, but he could hear their savage howling far below, and the horrible screams of his comrades.  Xena was yelling at him, giving him an order, but Hercules couldn't understand her.  What did she want him to do?

He jerked into wakefulness.  Outside his window, gray dawn painted the sky.  An instant later, he heard a blood-curdling screech.  He knew that voice.  Falafel!

V.        Hercules was on his feet without feeling himself move.  Barefoot and shirtless, he tore out of the room, raced through the corridor, and yanked open a door leading to the outside.  He ran around the corner, and to his immense relief, saw Falafel bounding across the meadow in back of the palace, an expression of terror on his face, but evidently unharmed.

"Hercules!  Oh, Hercules!  That monster!"

"Falafel!" he shouted.  "What were you doing out here by yourself at this hour?"

"I know, I know!" the cook said, agitated, wiping sweat from his brow with shaky hands.  "But I wanted to find blackberries to serve with breakfast—I know how much the lady likes them—and her little boy—you must pick them while they're ripe—"

"I think Rena would understand," said Hercules, trying to calm his pounding heart.  "I'm sure she'd rather not see you get killed.  What happened?  Did you see anything?"

"A monster of a man," Falafel gasped.  "I was picking berries, and I heard something behind me.  I turned around, and there was this brute—"  The cook wiped his face again.  "He missed me by a cat's whisker, and fell into the briars.  I ran—"

"Did you see what he looked like?"

"Oh, yes!"  Falafel's eyes were wide.  "A huge man, bigger than you, hunched over like this—" he demonstrated—"drooling.  His eyes—he had strange eyes—"

"Was he cross-eyed?" interrupted Hercules.

"Yes—yes—but there was something else—"

This must be the man that Brug had seen.  The killer would be on his way back to the swamp by now, and there was no time to lose.  Hercules bolted back into the palace, ignoring Iphicles, Iolaus, and Rena, who had come downstairs to investigate the disturbance.

Hercules drew on his boots and shirt.  "Get Brug," he commanded Iphicles.  "I need him to come with me.  Order him if you have to.  He'll listen to you."

For once, Iphicles didn't argue.  While he fetched the young warrior, Rena scouted up bread, cheese, and a water skin for the two men.  "Good luck," she said, giving her brother-in-law a kiss on one cheek.  "Come back to us in one piece."

"Herk, are you sure you don't want me to come with you?" asked Iolaus.

"No.  It'll be faster with just the two of us.  You stay here.  Get everyone in town into the palace.  Have Iphicles post a guard.  Nobody should leave here until I get back."

Iphicles returned to the kitchen with Brug, who seemed frightened, but calmly accepting of his whatever fate might befall him on the journey.  "You sure you trust him?" the king asked.

"I have to," Hercules responded.  He nodded to his brother and friends on his way out, but he didn't say good-bye, because he had every intention of returning.

*****

Hercules went first to the thorny blackberry patch where Falafel had almost met his demise, and found where the murderer had apparently gone staggering into the briars.  The crushed and flattened vegetation made locating the trail easy.  The big man had been in a hurry, and had made no effort to cover his tracks.  Hercules struck out at a rapid pace, pleased that Brug kept up with him, almost effortlessly.  The two men ate their meal of bread and cheese as they walked.  Before noon, they'd reached the edge of the swamp.  Here, the killer had begun to take more care with his trail.  Brug, however, followed the subtle marks with no difficulty.

Hercules concentrated, senses fully alert, proceeding with caution.  Once back in his lair, their foe would have an advantage over the men who pursued him.  Luckily, Brug was right at home in this marshy woodland and navigated his way with ease.

Finally, when they'd almost reached the thickest part of the swamp, the warrior stopped and gestured to Hercules with his hands.  He made reference to the trail they were on, suggesting that they deviate from it, and take a roundabout route to the killer's hideout.  Hercules nodded.

Brug began pushing through the undergrowth with utmost care.  Hercules admired the young man's uncanny skills of tracking and orientation; no wonder he'd been able to survive in the forest for so long.  After a pace, Brug stopped and just stood, as if contemplating what to do next.  Hercules sensed that they must be very close to the killer's lair, and that the Horde warrior was assessing how to make the final approach.

Hercules paused.  His nose twitched as an almost imperceptible odor sent a warning signal along his olfactory nerve, and when he inhaled through his mouth, the scent coated his tongue.  He knew what this kind of faint smell meant: the source of the odor was downwind of the prevailing air current.  The killer would therefore be able to smell Hercules and Brug better than they could smell him.

Slowly, he turned his head.  Brug saw his posture and expression, and he froze, except for his eyes, which scanned the foliage around them.  Hercules noticed the absolute quiet of the forest at that moment—the birds and insects had fallen deathly still.  He listened for sounds of breathing, for branches rustling, for anything that might give him a clue as to where in the jungle the killer hid.  Cautiously, he turned his gaze in the direction where the air stream was flowing.

At that moment, a shadow loomed out of the vegetation behind Brug.  Hercules bellowed an inarticulate noise of warning.  The young Horde warrior leapt forward just fast enough to escape the ax that swung in a blurry silver arc.  But the momentum of the strike carried the murderer out of hiding with an awkward crash.

For one instant, Hercules stood staring at the killer, one of the most hideously ugly brutes he'd ever set eyes upon.  Then he charged forward to keep Brug out of the path of that deadly ax.  The weapon whistled through the air overhead as Hercules ducked.  The next time the killer struck out, Hercules was ready.  He grabbed the ax by its handle, standing locked in a struggle with the killer, astounded by the man's strength.

Despite his power, the murderer clearly had been afflicted with multiple birth defects.  Each eye was a different color—the left so pale blue it was almost white, and the right a muddy green, both irises rolling toward his nose.  His eyebrows grew together in the middle.  His mouth didn't seem quite able to close all the way, and a stream of saliva dribbled down his chin.  His hair was long, stringy, and black, matted with brambles, and so filthy it looked as if it had never been washed or combed.  A deformity of the spine caused his back to hunch, which gave his thick arms a long, ape-like appearance.  If he'd been able to stand fully upright, the killer would have approached seven feet tall.

Hercules kicked out, catching the behemoth in the gut.  The man staggered backward, but would not relinquish his hold on the ax.  Then Brug got behind the killer, and slammed him over the head with a large stick.  Horrified, Hercules watched as the murderer kicked Brug savagely, sending the young warrior into a tree trunk at a fearsome velocity.  Hercules heard bones crack.

Concern for his young comrade gave him new strength; with a ferocious yank, he pulled the killer toward himself, then abruptly let go.  The man staggered and fell backward.  He didn't release the ax, but his deformities made it difficult for him to get upright again.  Normally, Hercules would never take advantage of an adversary in this manner, but if he didn't immobilize the killer soon, he'd be unable to tend Brug's injuries.  Hercules jumped forward onto the brute's right arm, with every ounce of his power.  Bone crunched beneath his feet, and the killer made a bestial growling noise.  In a dim corner of his mind, Hercules registered that he'd yet to hear this hulking madman utter a single word.

He grabbed for the ax, his hands closing around the wooden shaft at the same instant the killer's left arm grabbed one of his legs.  Hercules felt himself topple to the ground.  He twisted around, kicking his rival in the chest with his free leg, but it felt like kicking a stone wall.  He kicked again, aiming for the throat and face.  The madman had rolled up to his knees, and now tried to wrestle Hercules and pin him down.  If that happened, Hercules knew he'd be dead.  He swung out with the ax, using the wooden handle to strike the killer's head, and the blow forced the brute to release his grip.  Hercules struggled to his feet, only to have the killer grab for the ax handle again.

With his right leg, Hercules delivered a roundhouse kick to the brute's temple, causing him to lose his grip on the ax and fall back into the mud.  Despite having taken blows in the head powerful enough to render an ordinary man unconscious for several hours, the beast hauled himself back up into a crouch.  Hercules brought the ax handle down again, but the killer lunged forward, and instead of striking the top of his head, Hercules caught the man squarely on the back of his neck.  There was a bright snapping noise, and the madman dropped onto the wet ground for the last time.  He lay utterly still.

VI.       It took a moment for Hercules to realize that he'd killed the man.  Stunned, he reached over and grabbed an arm.  The limb was flaccid in his hands, the heavy stillness of death.  Hercules dropped the arm and hurried over to where Brug lay.

The warrior's body had the same motionlessness about it, and Hercules knew before he even felt for a pulse that Brug was dead.  The impact from striking the tree trunk had broken his neck.  Some would find it a poetic irony that Hercules had killed the murderer by the same means, however inadvertently.  He found it neither poetic nor ironic, only sordid.  He silently grieved the passing of the young warrior who had survived for so long, only to die at the hands of a deranged madman.

Gradually, the normal sounds of the swamp resumed.  Hercules knew he should take Brug's body and go.  But one question remained: the whereabouts of the heads that the killer had stolen.

Before he began his search, Hercules turned over the killer's body.  The man had been very tall and very powerful—easily as strong as Hercules himself.  But he found it almost impossible to reconcile this physical prowess with such severe deformities.  Normally, people who had been born with problems in their bones or wasting diseases of the muscles were small and weak.  For the first time, he took a good look at the man's face.  The features had a quality he found vaguely familiar.  And he'd seen similar birth defects somewhere else—where?

Leaving the bodies, Hercules headed into the thick tangle of vines and leaves, sloshing through mud and water.  Without difficulty, he found the disturbed branches where the killer had passed through.  The ground rose slightly, and the water receded.  Hercules found himself on an island of sorts, an area of higher ground within the dense wetlands.  He discovered a well-used path and followed it, despite the foreboding in his heart.  Then he paused.   He heard a sound—the raucous cawing of crows.

At last, Hercules broke through the trees and emerged into a large clearing.  For a moment, his head reeled with disbelief.  Despite all the atrocities he'd witnessed in his lifetime, nothing could have prepared him for this moment.

In the clearing, the killer had been constructing a house of human skulls.  Stunned, Hercules paced the outer perimeter of the building.  The madman must have been at his task for years, because the bones on the bottom layers were yellow with age; those on the higher levels were paler.

Swallowing back nausea, Hercules climbed a shallow flight of steps, treading human bone at each pace.  He now saw the object behind Brug's pantomime.  The warrior had been trying to describe the pillars of skulls that rose up from the foundation.  The bones had been glued together with some kind of mortar.  Despite the pillars, Hercules saw no attempts at walls or a roof—or maybe the madman hadn't gotten around to those.  Over to one side of the grisly structure, Hercules saw a macabre clothesline strung with half a dozen human heads, suspended by their hair.  A flock of crows swarmed around them, the birds fighting one another for the best positions.  The carrion-eaters were gradually stripping the skulls of flesh.

Hercules forced his attention back to the building, wondering if that brute had actually intended to _live in this place; his mind could barely fathom the depths of madness that had driven such a ghastly occupation.  He reached the far side of the foundation, and came across an object half-hidden by the pillars—a knee-high, roughly rectangular slab that had been created by gluing dozens of skulls together.  In the center of the lumpy surface, a crow lay on its back, neck broken, the body cavity gutted.  Flies buzzed over the carcass, and Hercules waved away the insects.  He guessed that the bird had been killed recently, perhaps that morning, and he recognized unmistakable signs of a ritual slaying.  The crude cube of skulls was an altar._

He now understood the reason for Brug's strange gestures of obeisance.  This grisly structure was not a house, but a temple.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

He turned around.  Behind him, Ares gazed about with an expression of supreme pleasure.  Hercules could barely find the words to express his contempt at this atrocity.

"Was that lunatic one of your more zealous followers?"  He didn't bother to disguise his sarcasm.

"Oh, Kyknos was more than my follower."  Ares gave his brother a smoldering glare of hatred.  "He was my son."

Hercules first reacted with disbelief, because divine parentage typically conferred many advantages.  In addition to strength and powerful senses, he enjoyed a remarkably resilient body—he healed quickly from wounds, and he'd never had a sick day in his life.  He could not understand how Kyknos could possibly have been born with such extensive deformities if Ares had been his father.  Then it occurred to him where he'd seen similar birth defects: the valley of the River Aoos, high in the Pindos Mountains, whose remote and isolated location had led to an inevitable amount of inbreeding amongst its people.  Intermarriage in communities of close kin almost always led to problems with the offspring.

"What happened?" asked Hercules coldly.  "Didn't your breeding experiment work out the way you planned?"

Ares shrugged indifferently.  He strolled about the temple, admiring the pillars of bone.  "He was an unfortunate mistake."  The god approached Hercules and stood before him.  "But one of these days, I'll have a son who's your equal, brother.  And on that day, I'll dig your grave."

"If Kyknos is the best you can do, you'll be waiting a long time," Hercules shot back.  "You know perfectly well that incest is taboo for mortals, because it results in deformed offspring.  If you keep lying with your own daughters, and their daughters, and _their daughters, you won't get that perfect killing machine you're looking for.  You'll get a crippled madman."  Hercules couldn't keep the revulsion off his face._

Ares snorted with laughter.  "I can't understand you."  His tone of voice was casual, almost jovial, as if they were discussing nothing more important than the weather.  He had resumed his restless pacing.  "Here you are, powerful, and not even all that bad-looking.  You could have any woman you wanted.  And you live a life that makes a Hestian look depraved."

"I'd rather keep my self-respect," Hercules responded coldly.  "Unlike you, I don't like the thought of leaving scores of fatherless children in my wake."

"There you go, moralizing again," sighed Ares, shaking his head in mock surprise.  He approached Hercules another time.  "You haven't lived," he said, black eyes agleam, "until you've lain with a woman whose flesh is of your own making.  The experience is..." he gestured with his arms, as if looking for the right adjective, although Hercules knew full well the god had every word rehearsed.  "...Exquisite," he finally concluded.

"And where does this _thing fit in with your plans to create the perfect demi-god?" asked Hercules, indicating the temple.  "Did you tell Kyknos to do this?"_

"Not at all," Ares rumbled.  "He did it on his own.  He knew I hated him, and did this to win my approval.  That pathetic maggot!"  Hercules felt his dull throb of anger beginning to blossom into full-scale rage.  "Ah, well.  I never had very high hopes for that oaf.  But he did better than I ever expected.  What could be more wonderful?" he asked, pacing the temple floor.  "An entire temple of human skulls, for the glory of Ares!"  The war god roared with ecstatic laughter, then sobered.  "Too bad he never got to finish it.  I was looking forward to having your head on top as an ornament."  Ares gave his appalled brother another amused look.  "You, maybe your little buddy..."  He paused.  "Or maybe that idiot brother of yours."

The mention of his friends and family was like an icicle through Hercules, driving right into his heart.  He couldn't bring the victims of Kyknos back from the dead, but he could at least pull the rug out from under Ares and bring the smug bastard down a peg or two.

"Not on your life," he snarled, then kicked out savagely at the base of the nearest pillar.  His foot connected with the frailest bone, the old skulls at the bottom.  The pillar cracked and shattered to the floor of the temple.  Broken chips of bone and pieces of mortar flew everywhere.

Ares shot him an enraged look.  Hercules didn't pause: he went to the next pillar and gave it a kick.  He'd reached the third pillar before Ares finally moved, leaping at his brother with an angry growl.  Hercules jumped out of the way, calculating his movements precisely, so that instead of tackling his brother, Ares crashed into the pillar and knocked it down.

The war god was becoming more infuriated by the moment.  Hercules knew that he only needed to get Ares to the boiling point, and his bloodthirsty half-brother would mindlessly destroy his own temple.  He jumped sideways; Ares flew through the air in a somersault, but Hercules dodged him at the last moment, and Ares knocked down another pillar.

By now, broken bones and mortar littered the temple floor.  Hercules began to laugh, thinking of the years and years it had taken Kyknos to build this vile thing, and the fact that Ares was going to wreck the entire monument in just moments.  The sound of his brother's laughter was the last straw: Ares hit the point of complete and utter wrath.  He chased Hercules around the temple, always just missing, knocking down pillar after pillar.  Ares knew perfectly well what his brother was doing, but he seemed completely powerless to stop himself.

Hercules saw the god pull back his right arm, hand glowing red.  He vaulted behind the altar, dropped onto the ground, and covered his head.  A moment later, the altar exploded in a billion fragments.  Ares bellowed with frustration, the sound echoing off the trees.

Hercules dodged for the line of rotting heads.  He yanked down the rope, swung the heads around like some grisly bola, then threw the whole thing straight at Ares.  One of the decomposing skulls hit the god squarely in the face.  Spewing invective, he wiped the rotting flesh and maggots from his face and clothes.  Hercules laughed and laughed.  He'd never seen Ares quite this furious, and for some reason he found the god's reaction immensely funny.

Nothing remained of the temple now but its foundation.  Ares finally caught up with Hercules, and the two fought like tigers, kicking, punching, and throwing each other across the clearing.  Hercules thought that if the god became any angrier, he'd burst apart at the seams.  Ares drew his sword and swung savagely at his brother, but Hercules avoided the blade with little difficulty, surprised to find himself fighting the god with a kind of cold-blooded pleasure, holding nothing back.  He knew he couldn't really inflict damage on Ares, but it was immensely satisfying not only to have destroyed the god's temple, but also to have beaten the stuffing out of him in the process.

Hercules dodged the swinging sword, and spun about, kicking as he turned.  He caught Ares in the elbow, knocking the weapon to the ground.  Before Ares could grab it back, Hercules had spun again, the momentum carrying his next kick right into his brother's gut.  Ares fell to the ground, then found himself looking up at his own sword blade, pointed straight at his heart.

Instead of trying to seize the weapon, Ares began laughing.  He pulled open the folds of his tunic.

"Go on, do it," he taunted.  "Kill your own brother in cold blood."  The god convulsed with mirth.  "Go on, I dare you!"

"Don't push me!" snarled Hercules.

Ares chuckled.  "Do you expect me to believe you, you spineless do-gooder?"  He folded his arms under his head, as if lying out to enjoy the sun.  "Go ahead and kill me.  Take my sword.  Become the next god of war, and be responsible for the deaths of thousands of people.  They'll really call you a hero then, won't they?"

Disgusted, Hercules stepped back from Ares and flung the sword aside.

The god sprang up, catching Hercules about the legs and knocking him to the ground.  Hercules smashed his fist into the side of his brother's head, forcing Ares to release his grip for an instant, then kicked up with both legs.  Ares went flying, but tucked himself into a somersault and landed on both feet.  He prepared to tackle Hercules once again, but a tremendous bolt of lighting suddenly streaked down out of the sky, slamming into the earth between them.  Hercules, who had just gained his feet, flew backward with the force of the impact.  Likewise, Ares landed on his bottom in an undignified heap.

With a snarl of frustration, the war god tried to attack his brother again, but a second bolt of lightning prevented him.  When the searing afterimages cleared from his eyes, Hercules blinked and realized that Zeus had materialized in the clearing.

_"Enough!" growled the older god._

Zeus turned first to Ares, who had retrieved and re-sheathed his sword.  "You monster," he hissed.

"That's right," Ares responded, giving his father a filthy, hateful expression.  "The monster _you created."  He roared with laughter and vanished in a glimmer of silver light._

Hercules exhaled, watching as Zeus regarded the decimated temple with a kind of dispassionate repugnance.  He sometimes found it impossible to believe he was related to Zeus, let alone Ares.

"You could have killed him, you know," said Zeus.  "The penalty doesn't apply to you."

"But the protection does.  Is that what you want?  Is that why the no-kill rule protects me, but I'm not subject to the punishment?"  Hercules shook his head, folding his arms on his chest.  "If you hate Ares badly enough to want him dead, kill him yourself."

Zeus gave his son a blank look.  "After all he's done to you?  I should think you'd want to rid the world of such evil."

"I won't be your assassin," stated Hercules flatly.  "If you and the other gods think he's evil, deal with him yourself.  Don't expect me to do it for you."  And he turned and stalked out of the clearing.

*****

Hercules found Brug's body and slung the weight up onto his shoulders.  Without even looking at the remains of Kyknos—Ares could deal with the carcass, or just leave it to rot—he headed back in the direction of the palace.

A moment later, he heard a muffled explosion, and felt the ground shake.  Zeus had evidently destroyed what remained of the gruesome temple.

Hercules trudged out of the swamp, grateful when the marshy lands retreated behind him and he once again trod upon firm, dry ground.  He located a small, deep ravine that could serve as a grave for Brug, and with a mixture of sadness, anger, and frustration, knocked dirt and debris down to cover the young man's body.  He'd hoped to build more trust with the warrior, learn something of the man's language, and develop an understanding of the faceless, menacing savages.  Hercules feared that any future clashes between the Horde and the Hellenic people was apt to result in a bloodbath.  Now, his chance to perhaps thwart the loss of life was gone.

On his long walk back to the palace, Hercules mulled over his terse exchange with Zeus.  The phrase _all he's done to you stuck in his mind like a thorn.  He stopped short, experiencing a sudden astonishment, then slowly began walking again._

He knew without a doubt that Zeus must have been specifically referring to Serena.  Perhaps the god had felt some sense of guilt for not having restored his son's mate to life, although he could have done so quite easily.  Then later, to settle his conscience, he had allowed the Cronus Stone to fall into the hands of Autolycus.  Perhaps Zeus had even planted in the thief's mind the idea of traveling back in time to rob Quaalis, which had inadvertently allowed Hercules to save Serena from Ares.  

What a sop, thought Hercules angrily.  Instead of openly confronting Ares for his treachery, for the crime he'd committed against Hercules and Serena, Zeus had chosen a passive, indirect means of settling the conundrum.  Hercules had still had to do the dirty work himself.  And Zeus probably imagined he was granting his son a great boon, and expected Hercules would be so grateful for the favor that he'd be willing to commit fratricide.  

Hercules had long suspected that Zeus left the "no kill" rule open-ended deliberately, hoping that one day his half-blood son would kill the bothersome war god.  Now, Zeus had all but admitted this openly.  Hercules felt tired and dejected, although he supposed the callow insensitivity of the gods ought not to surprise him.  He sometimes hated the knowledge that the whole wretched lot of them were his relatives.  Some family.

The trees began to thin out as Hercules approached the town.  His spirits lifted.  No matter what the gods did, he still had his friends and his mortal family—his _real family.  And right now, a hot fire, a warm meal, dry clothes, and an hour playing with his nephew sounded just about perfect._

**~The End~**


End file.
